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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29805546">The Props Closet</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Starry_seblos/pseuds/Starry_seblos'>Starry_seblos</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>High School Musical: The Musical: The Series (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, What do you think they do?, Young Love, seb and Carlos get stuck in a closet, small spaces</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 18:07:01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,310</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29805546</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Starry_seblos/pseuds/Starry_seblos</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>It should've been a simple thing to remember, the door to the props closet on the second floor had a tendency to stick. It should've been easy to remember, but apparently it wasn't.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Seb Matthew-Smith/Carlos Rodriguez</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>16</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The Props Closet</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>They should've thought about it before it happened really. They should've, but they didn't.</p><p>The door to the props cupboard was always a bit hit an miss about whether or not it really worked properly, years of the closet not really being used had lead to the door sticking far too easily, and the key that Miss Jenn had on her keychain was just slightly off in its shape, meaning on any given day the key would jam in the lock or just not turn.</p><p>Apparently this simple fact had slipped the mind of most members of the drama club when Jenn asked two people to head to the props cupboard on the floor above and grab any props left over from the schools last production of Beauty and the Beast to see if any of them were usable for the upcoming redo of the musical.</p><p>Kourtney and EJ were busy awkwardly stumbling their way through the dinner scene, both seemingly searching for any modicum of chemistry while Jenn watched, thinly covering her despair at the two of them. In a separate corner, Steph and Big Red were slowly marking through the Gaston choreography with Ricky while Ashlyn attempted to play the song at an adequately slow pace.</p><p>Carlos scanned the room quickly before making eye contact with Seb, who seemed to be catching up on chemistry homework for a lack of anything else to do and the two of them shrugged in sync.</p><p>"Seb and I will go" the dancer offered, dropping his folder of choreography notes onto the chair beside him.</p><p>Kourtney and EJ smirked from their spots by Jenn,<br/>"Of course you will" Kourtney said, earning a high-five from the senior sat beside her (the only thing the two of them seemed to see eye to eye on was that it was fun to make fun of their friends relationship) Carlos just rolled his eyes at the two of them, while Seb failed to cover a blush at the insinuation, ever the innocent kid.</p><p>Jenn just gave a dismissive nod before turning back to EJ and Kourtney, saying something about the feeling of falling in love.</p><p>Carlos linked his hand with Seb's as the two of them slowly ambled their way down the empty hallway, both seeming to realise that they probably wouldn't be needed anytime soon in rehearsal so they could take the time to be alone together, which was a rare occasion lately unless they hung out outside of school.</p><p>"Ignore Kourtney and EJ" Carlos said, noticing that his boyfriends cheeks still had a light pink tinge "they're just looking for a reaction"</p><p>Seb smiled slightly, "yeah, I know, it's just some of the stuff they say...I don't even understand what they mean by half of it" they shrugged "I know you all think that that's stupid-"</p><p>"It's not stupid, Seb, it's sweet" Carlos cut them off, squeezing their hand.</p><p>Seb tried and failed to cover the blush that began rising again and pretended to scowl when Carlos tried and failed to cover his laugh.</p><p>"You're my boyfriend, you're not supposed to laugh at me" he complained, the following giggle giving away his true feelings on the situation.</p><p>"I would never laugh at you" Carlos promised, pressing a kiss to Seb's cheek as the two of them finally arrived at the props closet on the second floor of the school.</p><p>Neither one of them even thought about the dodgy lock as the door swung open easily. They really should've.</p><p>The door closed behind them with a thud and an odd click that made Seb's heart clench slightly, they hated small spaces, and the click didn't sound quite right, but Carlos didn't seem worried, so they kept quiet. It was probably just a strange sound from an old door that needed replacing.</p><p>Carlos felt blindly around for the light switch on the wall, his other hand never leaving Seb's. Eventually his hand made contact with the light switch and the cupboard was illuminated...slightly.</p><p>It was clear that one of the many things that needed replacing in the props cupboard was the lightbulb, as the closet was not exactly flooded with a dim yellow light that flickered every few seconds and gave off a loud buzzing sound.</p><p>"Well...that's not creepy at all" Carlos said, glancing apprehensively up at the exposed lightbulb which looked like it was going to give up at any second. </p><p>The two of them set about looking through the miscellaneous props that were all seemingly unorganised and thrown into any corner they would fit it. The fact that neither of them had actually been present during the schools last production on Beauty and the Beast didn't really help their efforts as Seb stared at a what looked like a metal teacup for a full minute trying to figure out if it was a BatB prop, a lost teachers mug or just from a different musical altogether, considering there seemed to be props in the cupboard that were older than they were. In the end Seb figured that the layer of what they really hoped was rust and not mold made the cup unusable anyway.</p><p>"How do we know what's a prop from Beauty and the Beast and what's just an old prop that looks kinda similar?" Seb asked, venturing further into the closet, figuring maybe if he tricked their brain into thinking the cupboard was bigger than it was he would feel a little better about it.</p><p>Carlos didn't answer.</p><p>Seb turned to see his boyfriend stood empty handed by the door, that didn't look good.</p><p>"You ok?" He asked.</p><p>"Can you open the door? I think I might be weaker than I thought" Carlos asked, it was a joke, but the concern in his voice was clear.</p><p>It suddenly hit Seb, what they both should've thought about before they let the door close behind them, how that door had always been a little off, they pushed down the panic for the moment and just nodded, walking back down the room towards the offending door. It was still entirely possible that it was just Carlos and not the door that was failing.</p><p>They tried the handle, pushing gently. It didn't budge. He tried again, pushing harder this time. The door still didn't move. This time, Carlos stood beside him, both of them using their whole body weight to try pushing the door open to no avail. It was stuck.</p><p>The two of them stared silently at the door for a moment. </p><p>It was Carlos who broke the silence, "well that's not ideal" </p><p>Seb's hand found his jackets zipper as he began to nervously slide it up and down, "not exactly, no" he agreed.</p><p>Carlos suddenly seemed to notice Seb's rising panic, "oh god you hate small spaces, how did I forget that?" He rambled "ok, this is fine, don't worry, I'm sure someone will come to find us soon, or the door will unstick, maybe we should try it again, I'm sure we just didn't push enough"</p><p>Seb grabbed Carlos's hand in their own "I'll be fine, Los" he promised "I just need to distract myself from the situation" </p><p>With that the blond headed back towards the other end of the locked cupboard, still attempting to convince himself that the room was bigger than it actually was.</p><p>He reached the table wedged in the far end of the closet far too quickly and sighed defeatedly. They really did hate small spaces.</p><p>Admitting defeat on the attempt to make the cramped closet feel big, Seb lifted himself to sit atop the table which seemed to be the only prop in the cupboard that was still totally in tact - outside of the stuff salvaged from High School Musical.</p><p>"You're sure you're ok?" Carlos called from his spot, still stood by the locked door.</p><p>Seb just nodded, not trusting his voice to stay steady, squeezing his eyes closed. The dim light seemed to be making the closet feel even smaller than it had before, it's constant flickering giving them a headache.</p><p>Seb heard footsteps, indicating that Carlos was walking over to him. A hand landing on top of his confirming that theory.</p><p>"Do you have your phone? I think Mazzara has a key that works better than Jenn's, maybe we could ask someone to go get it? Or maybe it just needs someone to pull help pull it open from the other side"</p><p>Seb shook his head, "I left it in my bag downstairs, you?"</p><p>Carlos sighed "it died in my study period and I forgot to bring my charger today"</p><p>Seb groaned, burying his head in Carlos's chest, wrapping his arms around the brunet.</p><p>Carlos returned the hug, the feeling of his steady breathing helping Seb to calm down, at least they weren't stuck in this place alone.</p><p>"It'll be fine, someone's bound to realise we've been gone too long soon and come looking, I said I'd go over choreo notes with Jenn later" Carlos offered in an attempt to help Seb calm down.</p><p>Seb nodded into his boyfriends chest, Kourtney was supposed to be giving him a ride home, so she'd have to come looking for them eventually, they'd be fine.</p><p>They stayed in the same position for a while, it was hard to judge how long in the dim cupboard, but there was a comfortable silence stretching out and filling the small space.</p><p>Carlos hated comfortable silence.</p><p>"So when you said you needed to distract yourself from the situation..." Carlos began, Seb finally moved away from his spot buried in his boyfriends chest to face him.</p><p>"Yeah?" He asked frowning.</p><p>Carlos didn't seem deterred by Seb's confusion about what he was getting at, "well what exactly did you have in mind?" Carlos continued, smirking.</p><p>That confused Seb even more, "I don't know, maybe organising some of these props? We were supposed to be finding some for the-"</p><p>They were cut off by a pair of lips attaching to theirs. And Seb finally realised what Carlos had been talking about.</p><p>The two broke away for air and Seb smiled, "yeah, I think I like this idea better" he agreed before reconnecting their lips, leaning down slightly to account for the added height from being sat on the table. </p><p>They decided they liked the extra height. Carlos was only around an inch taller than Seb, but he never let them forget it, leaning down to kiss the dancer was new, but definitely still good. And if Seb took that as a slight victory after 2 months of Carlos reveling in his slight height advantage, well that was for him to know.</p><p>Carlos seemed to have noticed Seb leaning down slightly and apparently took that as a challenge as he shifted forward and without breaking the kiss moved to kneel on the table in front of Seb, pressing his hands down on their shoulders. </p><p>Seb laughed into the kiss, breaking away again to look up at his boyfriend who was now leaning over him, "you're very competitive, you know that?"</p><p>Carlos grinned, "yeah, but you love it" he insisted, pushing Seb further down so that they were resting on their elbows and reattaching their lips once again.</p><p>Seb just felt Carlos's hand move down to the bottom of his shirt, his cold fingertips a cold but not unwelcome surprise against his skin when there was a knock at the door.</p><p>They jumped apart, Carlos landing back on his feet on the floor in front of the table while Seb backed up across it to the wall behind them.</p><p>"Seb? Carlos? Are you guys in there?" It was Gina.</p><p>Seb and Carlos briefly made eye contact, both choking down a laugh before heading back towards the still stuck door.</p><p>"Yeah we're in here" Carlos managed, "the door stuck, we can't get out"</p><p>Seb could practically hear Gina rolling her eyes from the other side of the door.</p><p>"Yeah, this door is terrible, you should've wedged it open with something" </p><p>This time it was Carlos's turn to roll his eyes "well we know that now" he muttered "can you open the door for us or not?"</p><p>"Ok, you two push and I'll pull" Gina offered. Seb shrugged, it couldn't hurt to try it.</p><p>"Ok" Gina called through the door, "I'll count down, you guys push on three, one, two, three"</p><p>The door swung open, causing Seb and Carlos to stumble out towards a rather amused Gina who just laughed at them.</p><p>"Stuck in a supply closet? Well it's very you" she said simply, before turning on her heel and heading back to the bomb shelter, "oh, and you might want to clean yourselves up before you come back if you don't want Kourtney or EJ to say anything" she added without turning around. </p><p>Carlos glanced over to Seb who was still stood next to him staring after Gina and laughed. The pianists hair was pointing in a million different directions and their lips looked slightly swollen 'that's probably my fault' Carlos thought to himself.</p><p>Seb locked eyes with him and laughed too, the fact that he didn't blush at what the two of them looked like was a welcome surprise for Carlos, the blonde seemed to finally be getting more comfortable around things like that with Carlos.</p><p>"She's probably right, we should maybe make a stop in the restroom on our way down" Carlos said, linking his hand back up with Seb's as they slowly made their way back down the hallway.</p><p>"We never did sort out any of those props" Seb realised </p><p>Carlos just smiled "I guess I got distracted" he said as the two of them slipped into the empty bathroom.</p><p>If the two of them took slightly longer than they should've getting back down to the bomb shelter, well, that was between them.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Tada, I was missing my emotional support dorks so I wrote this</p></blockquote></div></div>
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